A Mom’s Thoughts on F#©&ing Up

For most of my adult life, I avoided profanity.

There were a variety of reasons. A desire not to offend or make anyone uncomfortable. A delight in words and language, so that a swear word seemed like a missed opportunity to choose precisely the right word for each situation.

Also, a desire to be a good role model for my children, to demonstrate that profanity isn’t necessary to express oneself effectively.

Baby Amanda, looking as though she’s about to let fly with a few choice words on this world into which she had so recently arrived.

In support of those efforts, I asked my husband to come up with alternatives.

As a result, anyone who came to our house when Justin was stringing recalcitrant Christmas lights, or wrestling with a broken-down tractor, was less likely to hear ordinary cuss words and more likely to be regaled with:

Son of a Motherless Goat!

or

Great Blue-Footed Boobies!

I do remember one time when I could have been mistaken for a sailor. My daughter and I were on the East Coast looking at colleges, and I found myself driving on I-90 going the wrong direction. Again. I’d been there several times before on this trip, and knew there was no exit for quite a while. I also knew that unless I broke the law and took the “Emergency Vehicles Only” crosscut, we’d be late to our appointment at Fordham University. “F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck,” I muttered as I took the forbidden route. Amanda looked at me and said, “Mom!” Not in a stop-swearing kind of way, but in a who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done-with-my-mother way.

Now that my children are grown, and seem to have adopted their own approach to profanity, I have an unexpected sense of freedom. The first time I dropped an f-bomb into one of my short stories, it felt deliciously wicked. These days, I scarcely lower my voice if the situation calls for a crude reference to excrement.

And now, I’m starting to wonder whether it was ever really all that important to keep from swearing (other than to avoid making others uncomfortable, which seems like a valid basis for keeping it clean). I’ve always thought of that incident on I-90 with Amanda as a lapse, a parental screw-up. Oh, there were many missteps that were much worse, but for years I’ve worried that my foul-mouthed moment demonstrated to my daughter that your values can go by the wayside the minute you’re frustrated (or something along those lines).

Another “misstep”: I said I’d never spank my children, and I mostly hewed to that rule. And then one day the neighbor girls’ mom came over and asked me, tersely, would I please make sure my son doesn’t pee in their yard. He was four, and had already figured out that it made the girls giggle. I’d even heard them egging him on, commanding in imperious whispers, Do it now, nobody’s looking! (They were six and seven, and Marty worshipped them.) There was always a neighborhood parent keeping an eye on the gaggle of children running loose, but by the time any of us could intervene the deed was done. Time outs and privilege losses and patient explanations had done no good. So I spanked him. Not hard – my heart wasn’t in it – but afterward he sat down with tears in his eyes. “You said we should never hit,” he said.

Oh, my heart.

There were other incidents. So many others. If you’re reading this and you’ve been a parent for any period of time, you probably have your own list.

I’ve been thinking about parenting, and parenting mistakes, a lot lately. I’m learning how to be a grandmother, my daughter and son-in-law are learning how to be parents (and doing a marvelous job), we’re getting ready to celebrate my dad’s eightieth birthday. Lots of milestones in parenting/grandparenting/ childing. Lots of love to go around.

And lots of regrets for mistakes made.

I know I’m not alone in this trench. So what’s the answer? What do we do with the shame and the guilt over our parental blunders?

An apology to our children, an I’m sorry I screwed up, seems a good place to start.

(Trying to) forgive ourselves also seems like it belongs in the Restatement of the Obvious.***

Sometimes it also helps to remember the times I DIDN’T screw up, and comfort myself with the evidence that the kids SEEM to have turned out fine . . . .

My lovely friend Julie has a great take on maternal oops-es. She says, “Well, we have to make sure we give our kids something to tell their therapist.”

(Easy for her to say - as far as I can tell she was and is the ideal parent. Tied in that honor with my children’s grandmother, Sharon. And my friend Kathy. And my sister Jessica.

And yes, I know “give them something to tell their therapist” won’t cut it for actual abuse or neglect, but for garden-variety OMG I messed up that seems like a healthy attitude.)

One way or another we (I) have to find a way to deal with our (my) mistakes.

Because what I now know is that there is no such thing as a parent who hasn’t f#©&ed up.

If I’ve managed to forgive my parents, and love them not only in spite of but because of their humanness, in all its flawed glory, maybe my kids will extend the same grace to me, whether because I’ve apologized, or because the scars from my screwups have faded, or because it’s nice to be able to complain to your therapist about what a _________ mom was (fill in the blank with a word of your choice, profane or otherwise), or just because time heals.

Let’s hope so, otherwise we’re all well and truly Son of a Motherless Goated and Great Blue-Footed Boobied.

Postscript for Mother’s Day: I have been so, so lucky to have many maternal figures in my life. The mother who gave me birth, whose absence I continue to feel; my stepmom, who had a crash course in mothering when she married my dad, and whose passing in 2019 meant I was truly motherless, a loss I also continue to feel; my former mother-in-law, one of my all time favorite people in the world, then and now; friends who stepped into a maternal role just when I needed that unique combination of straightforward advice and unconditional love; and grandmothers (I had three!).

And there are those who have “mother” in their title but don’t really act in a maternal role, because we came into each other’s lives in adulthood. For instance, I have cherished the friendship with Margaret, my husband’s stepmother.

I’ve never been in favor of the practice of putting mothers - or anyone else for that matter - on a pedestal. We’re all human and insisting some of us are saints just makes the so-called saints’ lives that much more difficult, as they have to juggle trying to live up to everyone’s expectations and avoid tumbling off that pedestal, in addition to all the other demands of life. But I do think a heartfelt You’re wonderful and those of us lucky enough to be in your orbit notice and appreciate you is called for on this day of celebrating mothers. So to all of you, the happiest of Mother’s Days. May your day be filled with a little of everything you like best!

*** “The Restatement of the Obvious.” All my lawyer friends and law-school cronies are familiar with the series of texts titled “The Restatement of . . .” (The Restatement of Torts, The Restatement of Contracts, etc.). I think it was Justin, or possibly our friend Bill, who said there oughtta be a Restatement of the Obvious.

Images of blue footed boobies by Hamish@poheimo and shalamov from Getty Images Pro.